


reflections still look the same to me (as before i went under)

by nolightss



Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Character Death, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, POV Second Person, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-02
Updated: 2015-01-02
Packaged: 2018-03-04 21:26:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3090617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nolightss/pseuds/nolightss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack was diagnosed on a Monday.</p><p>It was like a punch to the gut, those words, both hearing them and seeing the look on his face. You remember waves filling the room and engulfing you both, keeping you only just above the surface, but you could feel the water beginning to fill your lungs and hear it enter his.</p>
            </blockquote>





	reflections still look the same to me (as before i went under)

**Author's Note:**

> Jack has ALS. Cross-posted from my tumblr.
> 
> Thanks to [Beth](http://bruhlancey.tumblr.com) and [Becky.](http://bijackkelly.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Title from Never Let Me Go by Florence + The Machine

Jack’s hands started shaking on a Sunday.

He’d tried to hide it from you, of course he had. He tried to attribute the frustration of just holding a pencil to a lack of ideas, but you could see the creases between his brows deepen, the fear in his eyes carefully masked but still peeling away.

“Jack. Let me call the doctor, okay?”

“No, I swear, I’m fine! See, Crutch? I’m okay!” His voice grew as he spoke, carefully wallpapered emotions coming into view so frantically and uneasily. You called the doctor later the night, worry deep set in your chest.

·

Jack was diagnosed on a Monday.

It was like a punch to the gut, those words, both hearing them and seeing the look on his face. You remember waves filling the room and engulfing you both, keeping you only just above the surface, but you could feel the water beginning to fill your lungs and hear it enter his.

He drew and drew and drew that night. Drew you, drew Davey and Katherine and everyone, over and over as though to cram every last idea in. You tried not to watch, tried not to make yourself more emotional than you already were.

·

Jack’s right hand goes on a Tuesday, weeks later.

The moment hits like a gunshot in close proximity, echoing in your ears for days.

He tried, he tried and tried but his fingers wouldn’t obey him, wouldn’t-couldn’t move close enough to grip the pencil that seemed to be shrinking between his fingers.

“No, no, no, no…” He repeats the words like a mantra and you can barely watch so you crouch next to him, take his hands in yours and try to calm him down.

They’re calloused, warm and full of life, his hands, but even this soon they’ve begun to curl in on themselves, fingers limp against your palm and you kiss his knuckles, his wrists, anything to slow his breathing down a little.

The panic ebbs and he looks at you, wallpapered emotions rubbed raw for all to see.

"I’m scared, Crutchie."

You look at him, open and exposed, and realize that you’re scared too.

·

Jack can’t lift his arms above his head by Wednesday, four months later.

You’ve started rearranging the kitchen, lining up cups and bowls along the countertop to make things a little easier. Everything is a little closer to eye level in the apartment now, favorite books a little closer to the middle of the shelf, clothes on bookshelves rather than heavy drawers.

He insists it isn’t necessary, but you’ve watched him try to reach to adjust the shower head, and you don’t want to see the face he’d made again.

You find him on the apartment roof two nights later, back flat on the concrete, bundled in Davey’s hoodie and seemingly lost in thought.

You join him, lie down pressed against his side and he smiles at your presence.

"Figured if I can’t see Santa Fe, this would suffice," he says, gesturing weakly to the sky above them.

You take his hand in yours then, finding that the stars scattered across the New York sky almost match the expression on his face as he looks at them.

·

Jack’s legs go out on a Thursday, when the fall chill is just creeping into the air.

He’d been using a cane for about a week by then, despite the fact that neither of you left the house much anymore.

The thump from the kitchen had shaken you from your book and you rush in to find him sprawled across the linoleum, giving you a funny look from beneath his haphazard hair.

The look was almost enough to get a laugh from you, but instead elicited a text to Katherine and you lowering yourself to the ground to join him.

You helped him upright as best you could, propping his back against the cabinets and folding his arms across his lap. The funny look had turned into flat out worry, and you couldn’t take the sad eyes so you pressed your forehead to his. Promises and empty reassurances fell from your lips and you hoped they’d reach him somehow.

The water you’d felt all those months ago seemed to be consuming you now, seemed to have wormed its way into both your lungs’ and settled, choking you both slowly. He gestured vaguely to you and you took his hand, now so much weaker, the limpness that once was only a shadow now swallowing him whole.

·

Jack’s breathing slows on a Friday, just before a measly Thanksgiving and a dreaded winter.

The doctor gives him a tube and a tank, something to keep his head above water just a little longer, and though he constantly complains about the feeling of tubes in his nose, you’re grateful for what seems to be a few extra weeks.

He hasn’t left the house in months, and it’s beginning to get to him. He asks you to help him get dressed most mornings, and you gladly do so, grateful for anything to make him just a little happier.

·

Jack can barely lift his head on a Saturday, several months later.

You read to him, read him favorites from when you were kids, read him classics he never finished in school and even the newspaper, if something catches your eye.

The tide is creeping in, trickling into his oxygen, into his eyes and ears as he lies there, and it hurts to watch, hurts to watch him wither away before your eyes, and at this point all you can ask is for him to be comfortable.

"Crutchie, can you hold my hand?"

The question comes weakly through the dimly lit bedroom one night, and you think you might cry, because when has Jack ever needed to ask for physical contact? He always just went for it, pouring his heart and soul into every touch.

You oblige, of course, finding his hand clawed and curled against his chest, pulse just barely noticeable and you hold his hand to your heart, hoping maybe your pulse will be enough for both of you.

He breathes a reply, a small smile creeping onto his lips.

·

Jack passes on a Sunday.

You wake that night to an eerie silence beneath the pulses of the oxygen tank, something missing that you can’t quite place until you realize. You can barely hear the waves pulling around you both anymore, only the gentle current softly tugging you along.

Knowing what you’ll find, you turn toward him, noting the streetlight outside so perfectly dancing across his features, warming them even in their stillness.

You feel numb, realizing you should call someone, tell someone but all you can do is watch him, catalogue in your mind every inch of him. His hands, atrophied and thin reaching for yours across the bedspread, his face suddenly seeming so gaunt and hollow.

Somehow, under the sickness wallpapering him you can still see Jack, still see what was once his, what was once yours.


End file.
